BACKGROUND During production and processing of multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs), they may be inhaled and may enter the pulmonary circulation. It is essential that interactions with involved body fluids like the pulmonary surfactant, the blood and others are investigated, particularly as these interactions could lead to coating of the tubes and may affect their chemical and physical charac...

BACKGROUND Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have many potential applications, including as delivery systems for a variety of diagnostic or therapeutic agents. However, it has been suggested that exposure to carbon nano-materials may be a risk for the development of vascular diseases due to its impact on the vascular endothelium. MATERIALS AND METHODS Male Sprague-Dawley rats (180-200 g) were used to g...

Atomic level engineering of graphene-based materials is in high demand to enable customize structures and properties for different applications. Unzipping of the graphene plane is a potential means to this end, but uncontrollable damage of the two-dimensional crystalline framework during harsh unzipping reaction has remained a key challenge. Here we present heteroatom dopant-specific unzipping ...

Polyetherimide (PEI) is a widely applied as engineering plastic in the electronics, aerospace, and automotive industries but the disadvantages of extremely low conductivity, atmospheric moisture absorption, and poor fluidity at high temperature limits its application. Herein, commercial multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) were modified with a long alkyl chain molecule, octadecylamine (ODA), ...

Dithiolate-modified multi-wall carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) adsorb selectively on the self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) of alkanethiols on a Au surface: the long dithiolates attached to the MWCNTs anchor the massive MWCNTs onto the Au surface by replacing the shorter thiolates of SAMs.

BACKGROUND The applications of oxidized carbon nanotubes (o-CNTs) have shown potentials in novel drug delivery including the brain which is usually a challenge. This underscores the importance to study its potential toxic effect in animals. Despite being a promising tool for biomedical applications little is known about the safety of drugs in treating brain diseases. The toxicity of oxidized mu...

We consider force-induced unzipping transition for a heterogeneous DNA model with a correlated base sequence. Both finite-range and long-range correlated situations are considered. It is shown that finite-range correlations increase stability of DNA with respect to the external unzipping force. Due to long-range correlations the number of unzipped base pairs displays two widely different scenar...

Self-assembled bundling and catalyst removal can enhance the field emission stability and density of vertically-aligned multiwalled carbon nanotubes (VA-MWCNTs). These catalystfree, opened tip, VA-MWCNTs offered better emission stability than the as grown samples. Both the emission stability and density were further enhanced as the opened-tip MWCNTs self-assembled into arrays of conical bundles...

Using all atom molecular dynamics simulations, we report spontaneous unzipping and strong binding of small interfering RNA (siRNA) on graphene. Our dispersion corrected density functional theory based calculations suggest that nucleosides of RNA have stronger attractive interactions with graphene as compared to DNA residues. These stronger interactions force the double stranded siRNA to spontan...

Multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) are considered to be ideal multifunctional materials for biorelated applications, but there is still some controversy regarding their toxicity. In addition, the poor dispersibility of MWCNTs in either water or organic solvents has limited their practical applications. Therefore, obtaining a good dispersion is one of the key issues in their applications. In ...